Many of these declines have been driven by attacks on independent media, which are occurring even in countries where performance in Rights is high. Greece, which has experienced a five-year decline in Freedom of Expression, has been confronting a sprawling surveillance scandal, which implicated both the government and the intelligence service in extra-legal hacking and surveillance of journalists (International IDEA 2022d). In Austria, which also experienced notable decreases in both Freedom of the Press and Freedom of Expression during the same period, ex-Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has been implicated in schemes to shut down critical media and purchase positive coverage by using public funds through the Ministry of Finance (Gall 2019; ).
Similar phenomena have been observed in lower-performing democracies, such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the Republika Srpska parliament voted to criminalize defamation in July 2023 and made the unauthorized publication of video recordings and photographs punishable by imprisonment for up to two years. Journalists and NGOs have resisted the legislation, saying it can be used to constrain public discourse (Media Freedom Rapid Response 2023). In Georgia, which experienced a significant decline in Freedom of Expression, the ruling Georgian Dream party has overseen increased media concentration and broader surveillance, and has used the regulatory powers of the nominally independent Georgian National Communications Commission (GNCC) to punish critical and opposition media (International IDEA 2022c, 2022b, 2022a).
Positive cases exist despite these overall negative signs. In Slovenia, after years of government interference, a referendum endorsed a law—previously approved by the parliament—aimed at safeguarding the independence of the public broadcaster Radio-Television of Slovenia (RTV) (International IDEA 2022j). The reforms include a role for civil society in the appointment of RTV’s central management body, which local organizations welcomed after years of difficult relations with the previous administration (European Civic Forum and Civic Space Watch 2023).
Similarly, independent bodies have been critical in the protection of rights and the rule of law. In Malta, the Broadcasting Authority upheld an impartiality complaint filed against a media outlet owned by the ruling Labour Party (International IDEA 2023e). Europe’s privacy watchdogs have served as a key fourth-branch institution, drawing attention to the potential risks of artificial intelligence and raising concerns around chatbot ChatGPT’s encroachment on data privacy rights and fomentation of misinformation. Such developments could impact countries’ scores for Personal Integrity and Security. Italy’s Data Protection Authority resolved to temporarily block ChatGPT in March 2023, citing friction between ChatGPT and EU data privacy regulations (International IDEA 2023d).
When CIs such as civil society, the judiciary and legislatures engage in cross-institutional cooperation—such as the February 2023 passage of transgender rights legislation in Finland, which was made possible by decades of campaigning and a 2017 decision by the European Court of Human Rights—performance in Rights remains steady or improves (International IDEA 2023c). Finnish civil society groups have long campaigned against medical and psychological requirements for legal gender transitions and these efforts rapidly gained traction when the European Court of Human Rights held that mandatory sterilization as a condition of gender transition violated Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights in a key case brought by transgender French citizens against France (European Court of Human Rights 2017).
However, cross-institutional collaboration is not necessarily seamless. The Spanish sexual consent law, ‘Solo sí es sí’ (only yes is yes), was made possible by mass protests and collaboration between a coalition of parliamentary parties and organized feminist civil society groups (International IDEA 2023h). An unintended loophole in the law, however, resulted in the release of over 100 convicted individuals, as well as a reduction in sentences for over 1,000 people convicted of violent sexual crimes. Efforts to close the loophole in 2023 fractured the coalition, leaving the ruling Socialists to pass amendments in April 2023 that undid, in the eyes of civil society and the left-wing Podemos party, the original law’s primary accomplishments (Abend 2023; Hedgecoe 2023).
Popular protest and mass movements
In situations where institutional CIs are unable to prevent centralization of power or ensure government responsiveness to popular needs, people increasingly turn to citizen action to exercise popular control over decision making. According to the Global Protest Tracker, Europe has seen more protests than any other region since 2017. The most common motivations were concerns over fuel prices or the rising cost of living; others mobilized against corruption or in favour of rights protections (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace 2023). For example, in Poland, demonstrations organized by CSO groups led the government to back down from further restricting access to abortion (Krzysztoszek 2023a).
Other CIs have been active, but with mixed results in terms of shoring up levels of participation. Trade unions in the UK were unable to act effectively to stop a law on minimum service requirements for essential services during strikes, with implications for civic engagement. In Luxembourg, however, NGOs, media and local authorities all played important roles in raising awareness of new measures allowing foreign nationals to vote in municipal elections and in encouraging people to register in time for the June 2023 local elections (Sharp 2023; Lambert 2022).
Smaller protests and forms of horizontal organization exist in non-democracies and serve largely the same function as they do in democracies (Morris, Semenov and Smyth 2023). However, governments like those in Belarus, Russia and Türkiye attempt to strictly limit the scope of protest and deliberately erode civic space when movements become too organized (Armstrong and Guerin 2023; RFE/RL’s Russian Service 2023), constraining civil society. In Belarus, anti-government protests between 2020 and 2021 were met with further repression, including the entry into force in January 2023 of a law making it possible to revoke the citizenship of Belarusians abroad on the grounds of participation in ‘extremist activities’ (Radio Svaboda 2022; Ilyash 2023; HRW 2021). People remain committed to democratic modes of participation, even in countries with low democratic performance at the institutional level and, at times, despite great personal risk. Rural protests in Azerbaijan, against protracted government inaction over water shortages in March 2023, and against the expansion of a local mining project in June, have been met with violent crackdowns (International IDEA 2023a; Council of Europe 2023).
Source link : https://www.idea.int/gsod/2023/chapters/europe/case/western-balkans
Author :
Publish date : 2023-11-02 16:27:41
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.